The Ambrosian hymns are a collection of early
hymns
A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn'' ...
of the
Latin liturgical rites, whose core of four hymns were by
Ambrose of Milan in the 4th century.
The hymns of this core were enriched with another eleven to form the Old Hymnal, which spread from the
Ambrosian Rite
The Ambrosian Rite is a Catholic Western liturgical rite, named after Saint Ambrose, a bishop of Milan in the fourth century, which differs from the Roman Rite. It is used by some five million Catholics in the greater part of the Archdiocese ...
of
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
throughout
Lombard Italy
The Kingdom of the Lombards ( la, Regnum Langobardorum; it, Regno dei Longobardi; lmo, Regn di Lombard) also known as the Lombard Kingdom; later the Kingdom of (all) Italy ( la, Regnum totius Italiae), was an early medieval state established ...
,
Visigothic Spain
The Visigothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of the Goths ( la, Regnum Gothorum), was a kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to ...
,
Anglo-Saxon England and the
Frankish Empire
Francia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks ( la, Regnum Francorum), Frankish Kingdom, Frankland or Frankish Empire ( la, Imperium Francorum), was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks du ...
during the
early medieval period (6th to 8th centuries); in this context, therefore, the term “Ambrosian” does not imply authorship by Ambrose himself, to whom only four hymns are attributed with certainty, but includes all Latin hymns composed in the style of the Old Hymnal.
The
Frankish Hymnal
The Frankish Hymnal (german: Fränkisches Hymnar, also called " Gallican Hymnal") is a collection of early medieval Latin hymns, most likely composed during the 6th to 8th centuries in Francia,
recorded in a set of manuscripts of the mid-8th to ea ...
, and to a lesser extent the “Mozarabic (Spanish) Hymnal” represent a reorganisation of the Old Hymnal undertaken in the 8th century. In the 9th century, the Frankish Hymnal was in turn re-organised and expanded, resulting in the high medieval New Hymnal of the Benedictine order, which spread rapidly throughout Europe in the 10th century, containing on the order of 150 hymns in total.
Origin
The earliest Latin hymns were built on the template of the hymns (
ῠ̔́μνοι) of the Greek and Syriac churches of the second to third centuries. The first Latin hymns were composed by
Hilary of Poitiers
Hilary of Poitiers ( la, Hilarius Pictaviensis; ) was Bishop of Poitiers and a Doctor of the Church. He was sometimes referred to as the "Hammer of the Arians" () and the "Athanasius of the West". His name comes from the Latin word for happy or ...
(d. 367), who had spent in Asia Minor some years of exile from his see, and had thus become acquainted with the hymns of the Eastern Church; his ''Liber Hymnorum'' has not survived.
Hilary, who is mentioned by
Isidore of Seville as the first to compose Latin hymns, and Ambrose (d. 397), styled by Dreves (1893) “the Father of Church-song”, are linked together as pioneers of Western hymnody.
The Old Hymnal consists of the extant Latin hymns composed during the 4th and 5th centuries. The hymns of the Old Hymnal are in a severe style, clothing Christian ideas in classical phraseology, and yet appealing to popular tastes. At the core of these is the hymn ''
Te Deum
The "Te Deum" (, ; from its incipit, , ) is a Latin Christian hymn traditionally ascribed to AD 387 authorship, but with antecedents that place it much earlier. It is central to the Ambrosian hymnal, which spread throughout the Latin Ch ...
''. Since the spread of the Old Hymnal is closely associated with the
Ambrosian Rite
The Ambrosian Rite is a Catholic Western liturgical rite, named after Saint Ambrose, a bishop of Milan in the fourth century, which differs from the Roman Rite. It is used by some five million Catholics in the greater part of the Archdiocese ...
, ''Te Deum'' had long been known as “the Ambrosian Hymn”. While it certainly dates to the 4th century, Ambrose's authorship is no longer taken for granted, the hymn being variously ascribed to Hilary,
Augustine of Hippo, or
Nicetas of Remesiana
Nicetas (c. 335–414) was Bishop of Remesiana (present-day Bela Palanka, Serbia), which was then in the Roman province of Dacia Mediterranea.
Biography
Nicetas promoted Latin sacred music for use during the Eucharistic worship and reputedly co ...
.
Isidore, who died in 636, testifies to the spread of the custom from Milan throughout the whole of the West, and first refers to the hymns as “Ambrosian”.
Metre
The Ambrosian strophe has four verses of iambic dimeters (eight syllables), e. g. —
:''Aeterne rerum Conditor, / noctem diemque qui regis, / et temporum das tempora / ut alleves fastidium.''
The metre differs but slightly from the rhythm of prose, is easy to construct and to memorize, adapts itself very well to all kinds of subjects, offers sufficient metric variety in the odd feet (which may be either iambic or spondaic), while the form of the strophe lends itself well to musical settings (as the English accentual counterpart of the metric and strophic form illustrates). This poetic form has always been the favourite for liturgical hymns, as the Roman Breviary will show at a glance. But in earlier times the form was almost exclusively used, down to and beyond the eleventh century.
Out of 150 hymns in the eleventh-century Benedictine hymnals, for example, not a dozen are in other metres; and the Ambrosian Breviary re-edited by
Charles Borromeo
Charles Borromeo ( it, Carlo Borromeo; la, Carolus Borromeus; 2 October 1538 – 3 November 1584) was the Archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584 and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was a leading figure of the Counter-Reformation combat ...
in 1582 has its hymns in that metre almost exclusively. It should be said, however, that even in the days of Ambrose the classical metres were slowly giving place to accentual ones, as his work occasionally shows; while in subsequent ages, down to the reform of the Breviary under
pope Urban VIII, hymns were composed most largely by accented measure.
Ambrosian authorship
That Ambrose himself is the author of some hymns is not under dispute. Like Hilary, Ambrose was also a “Hammer of the Arians”. Answering their complaints on this head, he says: “Assuredly I do not deny it ... All strive to confess their faith and know how to declare in verse the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.” And
Augustine of Hippo speaks of the occasion when the hymns were introduced by Ambrose to be sung “according to the fashion of the East”.
However, the term “Ambrosian” does not imply authorship by Ambrose himself.
The term, (''Hymni Ambrosiani'') is used in the
rule of St. Benedict
The ''Rule of Saint Benedict'' ( la, Regula Sancti Benedicti) is a book of precepts written in Latin in 516 by St Benedict of Nursia ( AD 480–550) for monks living communally under the authority of an abbot.
The spirit of Saint Benedict's Ru ...
, and already
Walafridus Strabo notes that, while Benedict styled ''Ambrosianos'' the hymns to be used in the
canonical hours, the term is to be understood as referring both to hymns composed by Ambrose, and to hymns composed by others who followed in his form. Strabo further remarks that many hymns were wrongly supposed to be Ambrose's, including some “which have no logical coherence and exhibit an awkwardness alien to the style of Ambrose”.
H. A. Daniel, in his ''Thesaurus Hymnologicus'' (1841–51) still mistakenly attributed seven hymns to Hilary, two of which (''Lucis largitor splendide'' and ''Beata nobis gaudia'') were considered by hymnologists generally to have had good reason for the ascription, until Blume (1897) showed the error underlying the ascription.
The two hymns have the metric and strophic cast peculiar to the authenticated hymns of Ambrose and to the hymns which were afterwards composed on the model. Daniel gave no less than ninety-two Ambrosian hymns, under of “S. Ambrosius et Ambrosiani”.
Similarly, Migne, in
Patrologia Latina 17 (1845) edited ''Hymni S. Ambrosio attributi'', without attempting to decide which hymns of the Old Hymnal are genuinely due to Ambrose.
Modern hymnology has reduced the number of hymns for which Ambrosian authorship is plausible to about fifteen, including uncertain cases. The
Maurists limited the number they would ascribe to St. Ambrose to twelve.
Luigi Biraghi
Luigi Biraghi (2 November 1801 – 11 August 1879) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest who served in his home of Milan. Biraghi later went on to establish his own religious congregation known as the Sisters of Saint Marcellina.
Biraghi served as ...
(1862) and Dreves (1893) raised the figure to eighteen.
Chevalier is criticised minutely and elaborately by Blume for his Ambrosian indications: twenty without reservation, seven “(S. Ambrosius)”, two unbracketed but with a “?”, seven with bracket and question-mark, and eight with a varied lot of brackets, question-marks, and simultaneous possible ascriptions to other hymnodists.
Only four hymns are universally conceded to be authentic:
:1. ''
Aeterne rerum conditor'' (OH 2);
:2. ''Deus creator omnium'' (OH 26);
:3. ''Jam surgit hora tertia'' (OH 17);
:4. ''
Veni redemptor gentium
"Veni redemptor gentium" (Come, Redeemer of the nations) is a Latin Advent or Christmas hymn by Ambrose of Milan in iambic tetrameter. The hymn is assigned to the Office of Readings for Advent, from December 17 through December 24, in the Liturgy ...
''
''Intende qui regis Israel''(OH 34).
With respect to the first three, Augustine quotes from them and directly credits their authorship to Ambrose.
Internal evidence for No. 1 is found in many verbal and phrasal correspondences between strophes 4-7 and the “Hexaëmeron” of the Bishop. Augustine also appears to refer to No. 4 (to the third verse of the fourth strophe, ''Geminae Gigas substantiae'') when he says: “This going forth of our Giant
igantisis briefly and beautifully hymned by Blessed Ambrose”.
Other attributions to Ambrose are due to
Pope Celestine V (430),
Faustus, Bishop of Riez (455) and to
Cassiodorus
Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and writer serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senator'' ...
(died 575).
Of these four hymns, only No. 1 is now found in the
Roman Breviary. It is sung at Lauds on Sunday from the Octave of the Epiphany to the first Sunday in Lent, and from the Sunday nearest to the first day of October until Advent.
There are numerous translations into English, of which that by
Cardinal Newman is given in the
Marquess of Bute's Breviary (trans. 1879).
The additional eight tunes and/or hymns credited to St. Ambrose by the Benedictine editors are:
:(5) ''Illuminans altissimus'' (OH 35) Epiphany;
:(6) ''Aeterna Christi munera'' (OH 44) Martyrs;
:(7) ''Splendor paternae gloriae'' (OH 8) Lauds, Monday; in Mode 1 this is both tune and words, but a second tune, to the words, was called 'Winchester New'.
:(8) ''Orabo mente dominum'' (now recognised as part of ''Bis ternas horas explicans'', OH 19);
:(9) ''Somno refectis artubus'' (NH 14);
[Milfull (1996:475f.)]
:(10) ''Consors paterni luminis'' (OH 51, NH 17);
:(11) ''O lux beata Trinitas'' (NH 1);
:(12) ''Fit porta Christi pervia'' (NH 94).
The
Roman Breviary parcels No. 6 out into two hymns: for Martyrs (beginning with a strophe not belonging to the hymn (''Christo profusum sanguinem''); and for Apostles (''Aeterna Christi munera'').
No. 7 is assigned in the Roman Breviary to Monday at
Lauds, from the
Octave of the
Epiphany
Epiphany may refer to:
* Epiphany (feeling), an experience of sudden and striking insight
Religion
* Epiphany (holiday), a Christian holiday celebrating the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ
** Epiphany season, or Epiph ...
to the first Sunday in
Lent
Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke ...
and from the Octave of
Pentecost to
Advent.
Nos. 9, 10, 11 are also in the Roman Breviary. (No. 11, however, being altered into ''Jam sol recedit igneus''.
Nos. 9–12 have verbal or phrasal correspondences with acknowledged hymns by Ambrose.
No. 8 remains to be considered. The
Maurists give it to Ambrose with some hesitation, because of its prosodial ruggedness, and because they knew it not to be a fragment (six verses) of a longer poem, and the (apparently) six-lined form of strophe puzzled them. Daniel pointed out (''Thes.'', I, 23, 24; IV, 13) that it is a fragment of the longer hymn (in strophes of four lines), ''Bis ternas horas explicans'', and credited it to Ambrose without hesitation.
The 18 hymns attributed to Ambrose by Biraghi (1862) are 1–7 above, and the following:
:''Nunc sancte nobis spiritus'';
:(OH 20) ''
Rector potens, verax Deus ''Rector Potens, Verax Deus'' is the name of the daily hymn for the midday office of Sext in the Roman Breviary and in the Benedictine Rite.
The text of the hymn
The original version of the Hymn ended the third line with the verb 'instruis.' This ...
'' Terce (Roman Breviary);
:(NH 10) ''
Rerum Deus Tenax Vigor'' Sext (Roman Breviary);
:(OH 43) ''Amore Christi nobilis'' None (Roman Breviary);
:''Agnes beatae virginis'';
:(OH 39) ''Hic est dies verus dei'';
:''Victor nabor, felix pii'';
:''Grates tibi Jesu novas'';
:(OH 42) ''Apostolorum passio'';
:''Apostolorum supparem''; ;
:''Jesu corona virginum'' office of virgins (Roman Breviary).
Biraghi's list received the support of Dreves (1893) and of Blume (1901), but 20th-century scholarship has tended to reduce the number of hymns attributable to Ambrose.
Helmut Gneuss Helmut Gneuss (born 29 October 1927) is a German scholar of Anglo-Saxon and Latin manuscripts and literature.
Academic career
Gneuss is emeritus professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where he occupied the chair for English lang ...
(1968) accepts only hymns 1–4 as certainly composed by Ambrose, and admits possible Ambrosian authorship for a further six (three from the Benedictine list, three from Biraghi's list):
[Milfull (1996:473f.)]
''
Illuminans altissimus'' (OH 35),
''
Aeterna Christi munera'' (OH 44),
''
Splendor paternae gloriae'' (OH 8),
''Hic est dies verus dei'' (OH 39),
''Apostolorum passio'' (OH 42),
''Amore Christi nobilis'' (OH 43).
Hymnals
The term “Old Hymnal” refers to Benedictine hymnals of the 6th to 8th centuries.
Gneuss' (1968) distinguished the core “Old Hymnal I” of the 6th century, with about 15 hymns, from the 8th-century “Old Hymnal II”, with about 25 hymns, including both additions and deletions in comparison with Old Hymnal I.
Gneuss (1974) renamed his “Old Hymnal II” to “
Frankish Hymnal
The Frankish Hymnal (german: Fränkisches Hymnar, also called " Gallican Hymnal") is a collection of early medieval Latin hymns, most likely composed during the 6th to 8th centuries in Francia,
recorded in a set of manuscripts of the mid-8th to ea ...
”.
The Frankish Hymnal represents a revision of the Old Hymnal taking place in the
Frankish Empire
Francia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks ( la, Regnum Francorum), Frankish Kingdom, Frankland or Frankish Empire ( la, Imperium Francorum), was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks du ...
during the 8th to early 9th centuries.
By contrast, the Old Hymnal came to
Anglo-Saxon England with the
Gregorian mission, and the Anglo-Saxon church does not seem to have adopted the Frankish Hymnal.
Sometimes also distinguished is a “
Mozarabic
Mozarabic, also called Andalusi Romance, refers to the medieval Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula in territories controlled by the Islamic Emirate of Córdoba and its successors. They were the common tongue for the majority of ...
Hymnal” or “Spanish Hymnal”, which adopted some but not all innovations of the Frankish Hymnal.
The Frankish Hymnal itself was replaced by the so-called New Hymnal, beginning in the 9th century.
This development was possibly associated with the reforms of
Benedict of Aniane
Benedict of Aniane ( la, Benedictus Anianensis; german: Benedikt von Aniane; 747 – 12 February 821 AD), born Witiza and called the Second Benedict, was a Benedictine monk and monastic reformer, who left a large imprint on the religious prac ...
, but its rapid success also suggests support form the secular authorities (the
Carolingians, viz.
Louis the Pious
Louis the Pious (german: Ludwig der Fromme; french: Louis le Pieux; 16 April 778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aqui ...
and his successors).
The New Hymnal spread rapidly throughout Europe by the early 10th century, and reached England with the
English Benedictine Reform
The English Benedictine Reform or Monastic Reform of the English church in the late tenth century was a religious and intellectual movement in the later Anglo-Saxon period. In the mid-tenth century almost all monasteries were staffed by secular ...
in the late 10th century. The earliest extant form of the New Hymnal has 38 hymns. Gneuss (1968) lists a total of 133 hymns of the New Hymnal based on English Benedictine manuscripts of the 10th and 11th centuries.
The
Cistercian order
The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Sain ...
in the 12th century again simplified the New Hymnal to a core of 34 hymns which they thought were purely Ambrosian, but this was again expanded with an additional 25 hymns in 1147.
Peter Abelard composed more than 90 entirely new hymns, and large numbers of further new hymns were composed by members of the
Franciscans
, image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg
, image_size = 200px
, caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans
, abbreviation = OFM
, predecessor =
, ...
and
Dominicans in the 13th century, resulting in a very large body of Latin hymns beyond the Benedictine New Hymnal preserved in manuscripts of the late medieval period.
[Moser (1995:469).]
The New Hymnal was substantially revised in the 17th century, under the humanist
Pope Urban VIII, whose alterations are inherited in the current-day
Roman Breviary.
List of Hymns
Gneuss (1968) lists 133 hymns of the New Hymnal, based on their sequence in
Durham Durham most commonly refers to:
*Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham
*County Durham, an English county
* Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States
*Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
Cathedral Library B.III.32.
Gneuss' index of the “Old Hymnal” includes hymns of the
Frankish Hymnal
The Frankish Hymnal (german: Fränkisches Hymnar, also called " Gallican Hymnal") is a collection of early medieval Latin hymns, most likely composed during the 6th to 8th centuries in Francia,
recorded in a set of manuscripts of the mid-8th to ea ...
(called “Old Hymnal II” in Gneuss 1968).
[ Milfull (1996) extends the list of New Hymnal hymns from English manuscripts to 164.][Milfull (1996), pp. 3, 105f.]
Old Hymnal
Frankish Hymnal
The Frankish Hymnal
The Frankish Hymnal (german: Fränkisches Hymnar, also called " Gallican Hymnal") is a collection of early medieval Latin hymns, most likely composed during the 6th to 8th centuries in Francia,
recorded in a set of manuscripts of the mid-8th to ea ...
preserves OH 1-4, 6, 8-9, 17-18, 21, 26-27, 30,34, 39, 44.
Eleven hymns are unique to the Frankish Hymnal, while six of its new hymns survive into the New Hymnal.
The new hymns in the Frankish Hymnal are:
New Hymnal
See also
*Hymnology
Hymnology (from Greek ὕμνος ''hymnos'', "song of praise" and -λογία ''-logia'', "study of") is the scholarly study of religious song, or the hymn, in its many aspects, with particular focus on choral and congregational song. It may be m ...
*Ambrosian Rite
The Ambrosian Rite is a Catholic Western liturgical rite, named after Saint Ambrose, a bishop of Milan in the fourth century, which differs from the Roman Rite. It is used by some five million Catholics in the greater part of the Archdiocese ...
*Ambrosian Hymn
The "Te Deum" (, ; from its incipit, , ) is a Latin Christian hymn traditionally ascribed to AD 387 authorship, but with antecedents that place it much earlier. It is central to the Ambrosian hymnal, which spread throughout the Latin Chu ...
(''Te Deum'')
*Latin rite
Latin liturgical rites, or Western liturgical rites, are Catholic rites of public worship employed by the Latin Church, the largest particular church '' sui iuris'' of the Catholic Church, that originated in Europe where the Latin language once ...
*Frankish Hymnal
The Frankish Hymnal (german: Fränkisches Hymnar, also called " Gallican Hymnal") is a collection of early medieval Latin hymns, most likely composed during the 6th to 8th centuries in Francia,
recorded in a set of manuscripts of the mid-8th to ea ...
References
*Batiffol, ''Histoire du Bréviaire Romain'' (1893), 165-175.
*L. Biraghi, ''Inni sinceri e carmi di Sant'Ambrogio'' (1862).
*C. Blume, “Hymnologische Beiträge” II, ''Repertorium Repertorii'' (1901), s.v. “St. Ambrose”, pp. 123–126.
*C. C. Coulter, “Latin hymns of the Middle Ages”, ''Studies in Philology'' 21 (1924), 571-585.
*Guido Maria Dreves
Guido Maria Dreves (27 October 1854 – 1 June 1909) was a German Jesuit, hymnologist and hymnwriter. He was the son of the notary and poet Lebrecht Blücher Dreves.
Life
Dreves was born in Hamburg. He already had contact with Jesuits at sch ...
, ''Aurelius Ambrosius, “der Vater des Kirchengesangs” : eine hymnologische Studie'' (1893).
*Duffield, ''Latin Hymns and Hymn Writers'' (1889), 47-62.
*Jacques Fontaine (ed.), ''Ambroise de Milan: Hymnes'' (1992).
*H. Henry, (1907), “Ambrosian Hymnography”, ''The Catholic Encyclopedia
The ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'' (also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedia'') i ...
''
newadvent.org
.
*Helmut Gneuss, ''Hymnar und Hymnen im englischen Mittelalter'' (1968).
*Helmut Gneuss, “Zur Geschichte des Hymnars”, ''Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch'' 35.2 (2000) 227-247 ().
*Kayser, ''Beiträge zur Geschichte und Erklärung der ältesten Kirchenhymnen'' (1881).
*March, ''Latin Hymns'' (1875).
*Ruth Ellis Messenger, ''The Medieval Latin Hymn'' (2017).
*Inge B. Milfull, ''The Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church: A Study and Edition of the 'Durham Hymnal' '' (1996).
*Wagner, ''Origine et développement du chant liturgique'' (1904)
*A. S. Walpole, ''Early Latin Hymns'' (1922).
*Alexander Zerfass, ''Mysterium mirabile'' (2008).
{{Religious books
Hymnology
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Latin-language Christian hymns
Order of Saint Benedict
Latin liturgical rites
4th-century poems
8th-century poems
9th-century poems